Category: Fiction

Johnny had officiated 6,782 wedding ceremonies in his career as an Elvis impersonator. He hadn’t always needed the wig, and girls hadn’t always needed to be drunk to give him their numbers, though usually they were. Marrying folks had just been for the extra cash, at first. He’d done the ceremony so many times he could, and had, barreled through it drunk, high, or both, without missing a beat. Once, when he’d done a ceremony sweating and plastered, the groom shook his hand vigorously afterward, and thanked him for his “commitment to playing his character.” Johnny had had to try very hard to not puke on his shoes.

They are angels. It's the nearest I can get to labeling Penny and Mike. I think they're the wrong kind of angels, working for the other side. And this rainy city is perfect for them to hide. So many shadows and indifferent people here, indifferent to rain and shadows.

I don't get jobs, I write, I don't get jobs, I write...there's a pattern here. Though, writing is a job.

Some people are afraid of the office environment; I sympathize. Ari, who has spent a full five years of his life at a job that is clearly intended as a stepping-stone, once told me that the only thing worse than being in the office is being out in the field. I had just started with our group and I had no idea what he meant but I tried to be polite, an effort I now realize was lost on him.

The scrambling section required concentration, and so Jonathan and Ben didn’t say very much to each other before finally making it to the blustery overlook.  Jonathan zipped up his fleece jacket and looked out at the small islands dotting the cerulean Norwegian sea. On one of the closer islands, two small bright red houses perched on stilts above the rocks in the dissipating fog. Ben’s yellow windbreaker obviously wasn’t warm enough and his shoulders hunched forward in the wind. Did he even notice how beautiful it was here?